Episode 17: Healing Your Spouse and Yourself After You Have Had an Affair

We know that the person who was hurt by an affair, or any other breach of trust, needs to heal, but what about the one who committed the wrong? In this final installment of our three-part infidelity series, we talk about the importance of healing for the one who was unfaithful and their integral part and responsibility in healing their spouse. Whether husband or wife, cheater or hurt by cheating, this is an equally important part of healing your marriage or relationship.

Episode Transcript

This is the confident marriage podcast. I am your host, Jessica. And I'm your host, Sean? No fluff, no BS, just straightforward, real talk, real world experience and practical solutions. We talk about what no one else will. And we're funny, everything for your family and relationships from the playroom to the bedroom.

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Without any further ado, let's get to this week's topic. This is episode 17, healing, your spouse and yourself. When you've had an affair. Um, so let's go ahead and review the last couple episodes before we get started, because we're doing a three-part series on affairs and the ramifications and how to heal from them.

Yeah. So the first episode was unfaithful feeling like your marriage is a hurricane. And in that one, we talked a lot about defining what an affair is, or even just a breach of trust. Right, right. Because the same thing happens, whether it's a breach of trust or an actual physical affair or an emotional affair or pornography financial, even.

So it does the same things to a relationship. Yeah. And last week we did healing when you've been the one who's been hurt. Right. And it was a long one and both episodes have been pretty tough. And we can't promise you a lighthearted funny off the wall episode. This time it's going to be another rough one, but again, we're going to close out this series.

That's super, super important, right? It is very important and understanding all of the elements that come into play when you've had an affair. Really help you get a grasp on how to move forward and what to do. Right. So, so if you haven't heard the first two episodes, we highly suggest that you go back and listen to those.

Yes, absolutely. Because all three of them play into one another and there's information in each one that leads you. To understand the information in the following ones that you wouldn't think correlate, but they do. And really what we've talked about is listening to each three episodes together and separately, whether you're the one who's had the affair or you're the one that's been hurt by the affair, listening to all three is super important and understanding how the skilling process is going to really take place for both of you.

Because it's a really complicated dynamic that develops when someone has been cheated on or has cheated themselves, or, and there's a lot of healing that needs to take place. And it's important to understand all aspects of it, to be able to come through the other side. Right? Well, and each of you are going to be accountable to one another in one shape or form.

And so knowing what the one who's been hurt is doing, it's going to be really important for you to know what you're going to be doing and how, and if you're the one that's been hurt, understanding what your spouse is doing, that's going to be helping you or keeping. Themselves accountable is really important.

So we also say, take notes, get a pen and paper and jot things down. As we talk about them, you don't have to take every single piece of our advice though. We have found that everything we're sharing with you all works together succinctly. But take what you want and leave the rest. Right? That's a big motto that we live by.

And so we talked about what an affair is, and we've talked about how the person that's been cheated on or has had their trust broken, can start to get some healing from that and how you can start to repair the relationship. But what I think doesn't get talked about a lot is. The person who's had the affair or has broken the trust needs to get some healing.

Absolutely. There's a lot that leads up to why it happened to begin with. And they're hurting too. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of hurting all the way around. So today we want to cover what you need to focus on healing yourself. If you're the one who cheated and you also need to know what to focus on, because it's your responsibility to heal your spouse.

You need to heal the both of you, right. We're going to talk about some barriers that can occur to the healing process. The shame cycle is a big one. Yeah. And I'll be writing an article about that on our, uh, weekly newsletter. And, you know, there's the cancer of lies and a relationship that can follow that proceeded the breach of trust, but can also follow behind that too.

Absolutely. And then there's the disclosure for closure that we're going to talk about. Did you come up with that disclosure for closure? And then finally, we'll walk you through how to start putting all of this into practice. Right. So let's go ahead and jump right in. So why do you need to heal as well?

If you're the one who's committed, the breach of trust, why is that important? So many reasons. You have to take responsibility for what happened first and foremost, the thing. And I want to talk about that because it is really important in healing, your spouse, that you take responsibility for what you did.

It's really important that you understand that you're the one who caused this hurt. And while your spouse may have been doing things wrong in the marriage or not putting in work where they needed to not have. Right. Um, it's still on you for taking an unhealthy action. In response to that, right? Well, that tells the person that has been heard, that you recognize you accept what you've done instead of brushing it off as not that big of a deal or you're exaggerating.

It shows them number one, that you're really dedicated to making some changes in your marriage with them. And number two makes them feel validated, which is super important because. What you did hurt them. And they deserve that validation and taking responsibility is a big part of that. Right? And I think we need to talk about not being a victim blamer and you don't want to get into, well, I did this because you, I did this because you, you need to get in a place of understanding that there was a healthier way to deal with whatever the other person's part was, because everybody always has a part in it.

Right. Well, and we like an LNG is on the show. So. If you get arrested for murder and you tell the cops will I shot them because they called me a name. It doesn't matter. You still did it. You still acted on it. You made the choice to move forward with something that you shouldn't have done regardless of what someone else did.

It's still your choice. Yeah. And we need to be responsible for our choices because. Even though we may act like kids. Sometimes we are all adults. So, uh, it's also very important that you take responsibility and you do it honestly internally. And that you accept to yourself, honestly, that you were the one that caused this because that's, what's going to open the door to the healing.

If you take responsibility to your partner, But you do it only in words, and you don't internalize that and make it part of yourself. You're putting a big barrier up to healing. Right. And nothing will come of it. And that'll be discovered sooner rather than later. So you're wasting a lot of time by just acting like you're taking responsibility.

Right. So let's talk about, let's talk about what happens inside someone who's committed a breach of trust. And I know we've both been guilty of this. I mean, that's really hard for that person. Who's been hard hurt to hear because. Our pain is more often times more than the one who has breached the trust.

So we really don't want to hear it, but we really need to. Yeah, let's go with that analogy thing. And it's like, if someone runs a red light and slams into your car and you break both your legs and a couple of ribs and you're laying there screaming in pain. Oh my gosh. And you're laying there screaming in pain.

The last thing you want to hear is the other driver who hits you and broke the law, doing it to come up and go, Oh yeah, my head really hurts too. You're going to be like, okay. I don't want to hear any of that right now. It was your actions that caused me to be hurt. I'm I'm busy dealing with myself here and they're feeling a lot of shame over what they did and there, they could even be in denial about it.

In fact, it's completely normal for someone to be in denial about that. And it really takes an open mind to see the full scope of what you did and how much it hurt. And it's really hard to accept those things. And one of the pitfalls. Of denial and shame is that you can get locked in what I like to call the shame cycle.

And I don't think I came up with the term, but it's a cycle where you feel shame and. That makes you feel crappy. And so you go to an unhealthy instant gratification behavior to try to cope with the shame, which makes you feel more ashamed, which leads you to do it more, which turns into this huge never-ending cycle.

And it can be really detrimental because things can go downhill real fast and it can keep you locked in those unhealthy behaviors that led to the breach of trust to begin with. And then on the flip side of that is denial. Which, as we talked about, puts up, uh, an incredible barrier to healing if you can't.

And it took me a long time because I didn't want to have to, I didn't want to have to admit to myself that I could hurt another person, let alone the person I cared about most in the world that badly. But I think you would agree that the real healing didn't start and the real change didn't start until I could accept that.

Right. Well, and a lot of times people don't think that. They're feeling shame or anger or guilt or hurt over what they did, but that's deeper than the conscious level at the moment. And it doesn't start showing its ugly face and rearing its ugly face til later. So while right now you feel okay, that's not going to be the truth later.

Yeah. And Mark our words, if you've committed a breach of trust, you are feeling shame and you are in some. Sort of denial about it and you may not even realize it. And as Jess often points out, those things are going to surface in ways we may not even understand or realize it's a cycle of life. You know, often we do things and the consequences of them, aren't always immediate.

And people will tell you, especially in their older age, that they didn't suffer consequences from the choices, choices that they made until much later in life or years later. One example would be as eating unhealthy for a very long time, while it doesn't affect you then, and you seem totally fine with it.

And you're perfectly okay with it and you're totally enjoying it and like, Oh no, I love being able to eat whatever I want because I'm 56 years old when you have severe medical problems, that's when the consequence, but it's too late. It's far too late. Well, I live a little bit of that now. I definitely didn't eat.

Right. And I'm getting up there and I feel it. So, and I'll. Tell you a little personal experience, you know, it's, it's real prevalent when you come from an addiction background. Uh, there's a lot of shame involved in that addiction and a lot of hiding it. And one of the ways that addicts cope with all the internal feelings of shame and denial and self hatred is they use drugs even more to try to cover that up, which causes more shame.

Which leads to more drug use and that's how that cycle can keep going. And it was the same with porn. The more you do it, the more you're ashamed of it, the more you try to hide it, the more it starts to consume your life. And so all these things that are going on inside you, if not dealt with and not reconciled in a healthy way, they can lead to a lot of long-term bad effects for both of you.

Right. So if there's no healing going on and the behaviors aren't getting corrected, it can lead to for your spouse. Who's already been hurt. It can lead to such severe things as post-traumatic stress disorder, which we've talked about on the show and it can lead to depression, anxiety, paranoia, right. But believe it or not, the one who had the affair also starts to fill those things sometimes.

In a milder way. Sometimes almost just as much as the consequences start becoming real. Right. And it's like the it's like the telltale heart, you know, where they've killed somebody and they swear every night and they can hear the beating of the heart under their bed. And it haunts them for the rest of their life.

I'm really bad with my gruesome analogy. I'm sitting here and looking at him like, what are you doing right now? But even if you don't think it is, it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life, unless it's dealt with in a healthy way and reconciled, and that healing takes place. And even, you know, to take it a step further, even if the relationship doesn't continue and you end up separated or the relationship dissolves, you still need to get that healing for yourself, or you're going to be locked in that same cycle.

In every other relationship you have once that. That aspect of it takes place. If the relationship does dissolve, that can often even be worse because there is no closure for you after that. So you have to start working on that healing now, and healing is possible for the both of you. It's definitely possible for both of you, but you can't heal your spouse without healing yourself.

So let's get into some things you can do to start that healing with yourself and to help facilitating it with your spouse. Right? So. I'll let you, yeah, I'll let you talk about the first one. Cause that is definitely your thing. So open honest communication. Okay. Super important. You guys it's it really is.

You know, we we've talked about our workshop in the four cornerstones of a foundation in a marriage, and this is one of them. And it's game here to 100%. It is the first step. It is not even the first step. It is the foundation of healing for the both of you. So the open, honest communication, what we mean by that is number one is disclosure.

You're going to need to have complete disclosure about the present and the past, and even what you want for the future. And this is probably one of the most scariest and most difficult aspects of healing in this situation. And it's. Often done the wrong way. Disclosure is necessary. Even if this isn't your first affair that your spouse found out about.

And there are others, even if there's more to the situation than they know right now, you cannot have closure without disclosure. Neither one of you can have that disclosure does not necessarily mean that you're telling them all the nitty gritty of what happened in the affair. Disclosure means being open and honest about the affair itself or other affairs, ways that you lied, being open and honest about your feelings, what you were thinking and what was going on.

Often when there's an affair, the spouse doesn't know everything and you keep a lot held inside of you. That is going to really hurt the both of you even more in the long run. There's probably a lot more times than not. There's a lot more than you're ready to say. One of the things that I highly suggest in a situation like this is find a therapist or a counselor and lay it all out to them first.

Let them know that you want to have full disclosure with your spouse and that you need help walking you through that and your spouse through that, because it's going to be really difficult and hard, but you need to make a list. Make sure you leave nothing out because that is going to be the pivotal point of healing for the both of you in the moment that it happens.

I know they're not going to be jumping up and down saying, Oh my God, thank you for telling me everything. It is going to be tragic. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be traumatic. That's why I say you should probably do it with a therapist there to help walk you through it and the right way to do it and to help your spouse through that process as well.

That initial blow is going to be hard. It's going to be hard for the both of you, but once that's over. The closure can start to happen. And this is where all the other things we're going to talk about starts coming into play and starts healing you guys. And before you know it, it's going to start changing your relationship the way that it changes your relationship is you're bringing in honesty, open communication that you never had with your spouse before into the picture.

There's something called the lifecycle. I don't know if it's a term that's been used or not. I've never heard it before that I'm aware of, but it's the cycle that I refer to a lot. And so what happens is. When you leave something out, it creates a cycle of continuous lies and you'll believe that because you got away with this little lie or even this big lie, and they still don't know about this or that.

And you were able to keep that from them and in a way, protect yourself and, and in an, a health, in an unhealthy way, protect your spouse. You'll find that you're lying on top of that light to cover up that lie. You're still lying about. Got it. So there's going to be lies in addition to that line, moving forward, even if you think there's not.

So someday out of the blue, your spouse is going to say, Hey, what about that time that you got that call? And you didn't, you didn't disclose everything. You're like, Oh, um, yeah, it was, it was a friend. So you just started lying again. The other aspect of the lifecycle is that once you leave that door open for lies, you're more likely to lie about things in the future that are new.

Well, I got away with it that time and it's just this little thing. And so I'm going to be dishonest about this. I'm not going to tell her though, or tell him the full story or tell him or her that this happened. Or I heard from the person, I had an affair with whatever it might be. And so it builds on itself.

It's like a snowball that starts going downhill. And as it goes downhill, it starts collecting more snow. And by the time it hits the bottom of the Hill, it's this big, huge Boulder. It's this big, huge Boulder of lies. That's the lifecycle. When you're going into disclosure and you're starting the process, you have to be open and honest about everything.

Once you get past that hurdle, you're going to find that it's actually really freeing for you and it's really peaceful. And you're going to find that even though your spouse might not take it the best way in the moment, over time, it's going to build a lot of trust. It's going to build the foundation moving forward.

You're going to be more likely and more open to be telling your partner the truth, being open and honest with them in the future. Because you know, when you are scared of something, And you shy away from doing it. You continue being scared, but how often are you scared of something and you do it and you realize, Oh, that wasn't the way I thought it was going to be sometimes situations like that can be life-changing and that's what being open and honest does.

It's completely, life-changing one of the most precious things is knowing that someone can love you with your ugly. Love you with your demons and love you for your imperfections. Purely, that becomes a wonderful, powerful thing to have with someone. And you're able to open yourself up to that person in the future.

Those are the kinds of marriages that are really, really rare, and they create a marriage. Unlike anything you could even think of possible. I promise you that. You know, look, we know this is scary to disclose all your secrets, all your ugly, everything you've been holding inside, but it is incredibly healing, incredibly freeing and.

You know, you're getting rid of all those barriers. It's like, you know, the videos, they show sometimes of a dog walking through the door, but he's got to stick so long that it can't fit through the door. So that that's like, if you're holding on to, uh, if you're holding on to things and you're not disclosing a hundred percent, you're, you're not getting through that door into the healing.

And one of the mistakes I made in, in going through this process was trickle is what they call it. And that's with disclosing some things, but not everything. And then a little bit of time passes and then there's more disclosure and then a little bit of time passes and there's more disclosure don't do that.

Don't do that because what you're doing each time is you're giving your partner that false hope that everything is out and the healing starts, or at least you think it is. And they think who the worst is behind me. And then their world is torn apart again. One more comes out and then you're right back to where you were and then the healing starts and then it happens again and then boom, you're right back to where you were.

And there could be lots of reasons for this that you could be operating on fear. You could be thinking in some twisted, unhealthy way that you're trying to protect your partner and listen lies. Don't always come from a bad motivation, but they are always bad. So please do not trickle. It has to be completed, has to be a hundred percent.

It's like. If you have a cancer in your body, as your relationship has a cancer of lies in it, sometimes you have to go in and have surgery to have that cancer removed, and that surgery is going to be painful. It's not going to be a party. It's not going to be fun. It's not going to be a relaxing weekend at the spa.

But once you get through the pain of removing that cancer from your body or removing the lies from your relationship, once that pain is past you, you can heal and become healthy. But as long as that cancer stays there, even just a little bit, it's going to start to spread again, and it's going to take over your whole body.

Again, you have to remove all the cancer. Right. And one of the best analogies that my wife ever gave, and one of the best visuals she ever gave is so imagine your relationship as the foundation for your home. And that foundation is made of stone and lies are like vines and roots that take hold and they start growing through the foundation and they start damaging it.

And you can remove some of the, some of the roots and some of the vines, but if you start building on that and you've left some behind, they're going to continue to come up and erode that foundation. They're going to continue to get bigger and bigger until they do damage. And unless you remove all of it, You can't rebuild that foundation.

You can't build anything solid on top of it. So you've built this house on top of the foundation and you can't figure out why the house is crooked and it's not quite right. And everything's kind of off. And this window is tilted and that door doesn't open up and you can't figure out why the house looks like something out of a cartoon.

And it's because you don't have a stable foundation. And eventually that house is going to collapse. Right. Look, I build foundations for a living sometimes and they've got to be solid and they've got to be right. Right. You know, one of the things that isn't really understood and not really talked about is that people don't realize that others know that they're lying.

And often we think that we're getting away with it. And while someone might not know exactly what you're lying about or. The extent of the lie. People are really intuitive, especially your spouse. They know you better than anybody. They know when something's going on with you. And when you're lying, you don't realize it, but it affects every aspect of your life.

Just like the cancer we talked about. And you may not see how it's affecting you until after the fact in the moment you think you're doing great. And you're putting on game face wonderfully. Meanwhile, your spouse knows. And they know they know something, but they can't figure out what it is, which can be even more scary, even more scary.

So again, our analogies on this show, you know, you're sick and you go to the doctor and the doctor looks at you and says, mm, yes, I know what's going on. And you say, well, what is it? And they refuse to tell you, imagine. The fear, the anxiety, hanger, the frustration and the resentment that the doctor knows what's wrong with you, but he's not going to tell you and you have to live like that.

I have no idea how minor or severe it is. You have no idea what to do to fix it. You have no idea what your next steps are. You have no idea what's going to happen. The minute you walk out of that office tomorrow or in a year from now, you just know something's wrong, but you don't know what it is. That's your spouse.

That's how they're feeling. That's how they're living day in and day out. It's terrifying. One of the biggest needs in a human beings. Life is the need for security. Like we need air food and water. And when we know that we're not secure, but we don't know why or how it's hard to function. So the last thing I'm going to say about lies and the whole disclosure process and being open and honest is while you might think that you might be getting away with not saying everything or that you can keep a couple of things secret.

When I talk about the life cycle and I, I tell you that it opens you up to more lies and I promise you, you can try it and true that yourself eventually you'll start lying again. Your spouse is going to find out about something along the line, little moderate, big, they're going to find something out.

They're going to catch you in a lie. At some point, you need to know that when they do, they don't need to know how many other lies there are. They don't need to know how big other lies are, and they don't need to find everything out to know that you're still dishonest. And that alone is going to erode everything you have worked for or everything you're working towards.

That one little lie is going to set you back you and your spouse completely. So again, open honest communication is the foundation, right? And the open honest communication may start with disclosure. But it's got to continue and it's got to continue throughout the course of your healing and through your relationship and make sure that you are doing your disclosure completely.

It's also important that you have a safe environment to disclose those things. And so, as Jess suggested, maybe working with a therapist, if you need to, but just being open and honest, disclosing everything, not trickling everything out and making sure you take responsibility. That you're the one who's caused this hurt internally, except that the hurt they're feeling is real and that it is as bad as they say it is.

And that it's your responsibility to heal them as well as yourself, which leads me into one way that you can start taking responsibility for that healing after disclosure and that's accountability. So accountability is a big thing. And it has also called transparency. And so what happens when you've hurt your spouse with a betrayal or a breach of trust or an affair is that they now have their whole life thrown into disarray and everything is unknown.

They don't know the extent of it. They don't know what you're capable of. They don't know what could still be going on. And it is incredibly important for you to provide a safe environment for them to heal. And to take as much of that unknown out of the picture as you can. So accountability is the act of putting everything out in the open, you know, being transparent, making sure everything is seen.

And it's really important that you take the initiative and do this yourself. Don't wait for them to ask. Yes. And so speaking on that from someone who's been hurt, we don't. Feel good about ourselves. And often we won't say that we want you to be transparent because it makes us feel number one, dirty and icky inside for even having to be in the situation to ask for it.

And it doesn't feel right to want to be up in your business like that though. We need it to heal. We have a hard time coming to terms with asking for it. Number one. And number two is if we have to ask for it, It almost defeats the purpose of it, meaning it does. You need to be the one to initiate it and keep it going and do it for your spouse.

And so I, I did write a really good article if I do say so myself and it's available, it's available on our website. Um, it's called accountability now it's really, really panicked, but I go through a lot of it. And so let me touch on it right now. So one of the things that. Can help with accountability is to get all of your passwords.

Cause often when there's an affair, things are being hidden. Communications are being hidden and even if they weren't, your spouse is going to wonder. So all your passwords to every account, no matter than the ones that they didn't know about that you have now already disclosed. Yes. You disclosed those in the disclosure phase, right.

And shutting those down with your partner right there. That don't need to be there. The ones down the, that they don't feel comfortable with you having, because it has to be on their terms. And just making sure that they have access to everything. So one of the things that Jess and I did was that I closed any email account that I had and we opened a joint email account.

So there's free access to all the emails that I send and receive, although I don't do much with it, but, uh, another big one is social media. So. We love social media because there's a lot of good to it and you know, it helps get our name out there and we get to interact with you guys. But there's another aspect of social media that can be pretty scary when it comes to infidelity.

So dark closed, red light series of it. Yeah. Yeah. It gets pretty shady in there, I guess. So closing any social media accounts that your spouse isn't comfortable with? Giving them access, you know, offer it. Don't wait for them to ask for it, offer them access all your passwords, share a social media account instead of having separate ones, you know, but it's, it's, it's a fine line.

You want to do it on your own? But you got to do it on their terms. There's going to be things that they need from you and things that aren't so important. And I had a really hard time feeling my way through that, but you've got to have a lot of situational awareness and you've got to really put yourself in the place of your partner.

Would my wife or my husband, my boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever would they be comfortable with this situation? Is it something that might cause them to feel uncomfortable? Well, a really good way to do this. So you guys kind of need to talk about this because every relationship is different. So maybe you think, you know, and you don't know, or maybe you do know, but you sit down and you say, okay, honey, here is every single account that I have.

Let's go through every single account and you tell me what you'd like me to do with it. And as you guys sit there, you write down next to every account that you have listed on a piece of paper. We're going to close this one and she's going to do it right in front of me and watch me do it. And she's going to have the old password and email to it.

So if I ever reopen it, she knows, or he knows, and this one, she wants to join with me on. And this one I can leave. I just need to give her the login information for us. So you go through each account one by one and you let. Them tell you what they would like you to do with it. You don't ask them to do it.

You let them tell you what they want you to do with it. And then you follow through with that with them right there in front of you. Yeah. I mean, maybe say something like, Hey, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. Um, I want to give you some peace of mind, so here's everything I got. What would you like me to do with it?

What would make you feel most comfortable? It could also be that your spouse isn't ready to be open and honest themselves and they're scared. And they might say, I don't care about any of it. Okay. Then what you do is you write down all the usernames and passwords and you leave it somewhere for them to be able to know where it is and say, honey, I left all of my usernames and passwords.

I don't know, on the desk, in the office or. On the dresser in our bedroom. If you ever do want to take a peek, it's there for you. Another big thing that is part of accountability and goes hand in hand with it and also plays into that fear of the unknown is consistency. And that is when you're doing the same thing.

Not, not that you're doing the same thing all the time, but that. You're predictable. Yeah. You're being the person that you're portraying yourself to be, and it's showing up in hard evidence. Right. And so last week I talked to those who have been heard about keeping, um, consistent to allow the heart and the mind to heal.

But that goes for you too. Because often, if you throw a wrench into their consistency, you can really throw them off in a day and they can get triggered really quickly. So being really consistent yourself and providing that transparency and that accountability, and, you know, the updates is really, really important while some spouses are going to need more than others.

That's okay. You need to find out what it is. They mean, if you're coming home late for work and you genuinely were working, there's not a whole lot, you can do about that. Right. But keeping your spouse in the loop. And I had one couple. Who he, if he had to work late, he would use his phone and take pictures of his feet underneath the desk and text them to her.

So she knew where he was and what he was doing. That's on the extreme level, but there are some ideas of ways that you can reassure them that you are at work and you are in a meeting and running late, be creative with it. Again, it's extreme, but. I can tell you, it really did help her in a lot of ways. So things like that, maybe, you know, FaceTime or something to let them know that you're not lying to them.

Yeah. And so one of the ways that I went about this as to make sure that if something was going to be out of the ordinary, that you always call or let them know at some point. In some way, shape or form. If I was going to be staying late at work, I made sure I got in touch with Jess somehow to let her know this is what we, this is what I'm doing.

It's going to be probably an hour. Um, and I'll call you as soon as I'm off work. If the overtime stretch longer than that one hour came and we were still working, I'd find a way to call her or text her. Hey, it's going to be a little bit longer. This is what I'm doing, you know, in the whole taking pictures thing, as she was talking about, you guys can turn that into something funny, even, you know, it, your spouse might actually like to see a picture of you at work, and it gives you a little way to connect.

You can send pictures to each other and. If you're having to commute a long way, you can maybe take that time to talk to your spouse on the phone instead of sitting alone in the car or spacing out on the radio. You know, I'm all for like listening to the confident marriage podcast while you're doing it.

But you guys can listen together. Or, uh, one of the things that we used to do, um, as we used to listen to the marriage content that was in audio while you were driving home from work and I would listen to it, and then you still maybe had a half hour or 20 minutes before you got home and we'd hop on the phone.

And we discussed the content. We listened to what we liked about it. What really stood out to us, what really meant his thing, what we didn't like. We really use that time to connect for a while. Right. And I guess one of the main things is if you're going to be late, Let her show is that content, just kidding.

Get a plugin. Okay. Let him know, Oh, you're going to be late. Let them know why you're going to be late. If you have to run to the grocery store and you didn't think you were going to have to go, but all of a sudden you have to go and they're still a work in McCall. Let them know where you're going, you know?

And. If you say you're going to show up at four o'clock some somewhere, make sure you show up at four o'clock somewhere. If you're not going to be able to make it, then make sure you let them know why and what time you will be there. And one other thing that I want to touch on before we move on is again, every couple is different.

One of the other things that we learned during. Our healing process. It was a suggestion that was brought up to us is that you don't interact with the opposite sex. So let's say one of your kids is in soccer and the coach's male and contacts. The wife. The best thing to do is to say, Hey, I'm going to have my husband call you.

Okay. And then have your husband call and say, yes, she gets really busy. I'm going to go ahead and take the silver. Why don't you save your number on my phone and give me a color or a text for some that's going a little too far and that's okay to each their own. It's not something that we did, but there are a lot of couples who actually for a while say.

When you are communicating with someone, let's keep it just with gender related and I will deal with the females and you deal with the males and vice versa. So again, to each their own, you don't have to do it. It's just something to throw out there as an idea. If it's something that you guys want to do.

Right. So I go through all this and, uh, get a little more in depth than that article. I wrote it's on our website, www.theconfidentmarriage.com under notes from us. I believe it's wow. Words, words, words of wisdom. Yeah. Check out the cool logo I made for it. It's awesome. It's a hoot. Yeah. You understand that?

If you see it. So another big thing that was a terrible transition. Another big thing is. Making sure you're taking the initiative to get the self-help you may need. So an example of that can be, if there is an addiction going on a drug addiction and alcohol addiction, a porn addiction to take the initiative on your own to get some help for that.

Uh, maybe seeking a therapist, if you have some emotional issues and you know, that's going to show your spouse, that you're taking the initiative to heal yourself, to help yourself, to make yourself a better person for the relationship in order to have a better relationship. So changing your habits, starting to do more healthy things, healthy activities, getting rid of unhealthy hobbies.

Maybe you've got some friends that are not about what you're trying to be about. Maybe they're a bunch of single guys that go out and go drinking and talk to women. And maybe that's not the best thing for you when you're trying to heal your marriage or your relationship from an affair. So not. I'm going to interrupt you.

That's actually a really good point, honey, because that's one of the things that they really talk about is you really need to align yourself with other people who are like-minded or you ended up without realizing it, falling into those actions and those behaviors of the people that you're around.

Right. And it's like in addiction, they talk about changing people, places and things. You know, if you keep doing the same thing, you're probably gonna end up in the same place. You really got to take that initiative on your own. To change the things around you, the people around you, the atmosphere around you, so that you can change and doing that on your own and showing your spouse that is going to go a long way in healing, birds of a feather fight together.

Yes, they do. Owls. Who said that? Another huge thing other than accountability and self-help. And disclosure and honesty is learning your spouse's triggers and helping them through them in a healthy way. They you'll hear people. And I used to say it a lot. It's helping your spouse deal or dealing with your spouse's triggers.

I hate saying it like that because it makes it seem like, Oh, I got to deal with this, but helping your spouse through those triggers because when they're triggered. It's like they're in the middle of a storm. In fact to you, if you're bearing the brunt of it, it can feel like they are a storm, but it's because they're hurt and they're scared and they're damaged.

And you know, going back to taking responsibility, you need to get in the mindset. I'm the one who's caused this and I need to help them through it. Right. And that's such a healing property for the both of you. It really brings you guys closer together when you can help them through those hardest moments.

Starts to heal a lot of that pain that they can rely on you like that. Right. And it's hard for both parties because the person who got hurt, it's, it's really hard for them to turn to the person that hurt them to help them through that situation. But at some point they're going to have to learn to do that, right.

And then you might get pushback in the beginning, or if it's really, really bad, you're going to, and don't touch me. Don't come near me. I don't want to have any don't even look at me. I know those moments, but trust me, they'll. The warm up to it. And once you do it, a couple of times are really going to see the healing properties.

And if you are really intentionally being loving and caring and helping them. They're going to want to come to you because it really does help them with it. I'm going to pull you guys closer together and it's going to be trial and error and it's going to be hit or miss, and you're going to need to get inside your spouse's head again, and you're going to need to learn their triggers.

And you're going to have to have an honest conversation with them about what they need in those moments. And they might not know. So you guys are going to have to figure that out together. But what I will tell you is it is really, really vital that you are soft and gentle no matter how they get, and that you're humble and that you are taking responsibility in those moments and that you respond with patients love and kindness, no matter how, no matter how they react in those moments, in some ways to help them through their triggers.

Sometimes. When we're still learning how to deal with our own triggers. We forget what we're supposed to be doing to manage those triggers. You really should have a deep conversation with your spouse about what they've learned their triggers are. How, what, when and why? Last episode, I talked to them about writing all this stuff down, you should be familiar with it and know their triggers.

So you can. Predict it, before it even happens yourself and be ready to help them. And also what their trigger plan is when they become triggered. So that way, if they're so caught up in the trigger and it's going to happen where they don't want to do anything, and they're just angry and hurt and scared, and they don't want to do the deep breathing or their meditation or changing their thinking, you can guide them.

And Sean, this is one of the ways that Sean would do it for me is one of my things was counting things. And so he'd say you're triggered right now, honey. Let's just stop for a moment. How many windows are in the house? Just count them for me. We can talk about this in a minute, but let's just do this right now.

How many windows are in the house? And that's kind of how, in some ways that you can really help your spouse with those triggers. Yeah. So you listen, if you're the one that's caused the hurt, you're going to bear the brunt. A lot of times in these moments and your spouse is not going to be able to snap themselves out of it.

And yeah. I will say one of the worst things you can do is turn away from them because believe me, you're going to want to run away. And some of those moments, you're going to be feeling a lot of shame and guilt inside over what you've done. And you're not going to want to hear the things they have to say, but instead of turning and running away from them, because that's going to tell them that you're not in it for the long haul, when you can, when you can bear the brunt of their hurt and their anger, and in those moments, hold them up and walk them through it.

That is going to show them that you are there no matter what you are changing, you're taking responsibility and you're taking care of them. And that you're providing that environment of healing that they so desperately need. And you're giving them that consistency. That again, you're, you're there for the long haul.

You're not going to turn and run what happened happened, but it wasn't because you didn't love them and you're not going to leave them. And guess what? The other wonderful thing about this aspect is you get to heal yourself in the process, knowing that you were there and you were part of healing them, and you were there for them in the moments that they needed to when you were the one that hurt them and that you were the one that got to walk them through that and bring them on the other side, it's going to make you feel amazing too.

And as we said, you know, everything connects with this and if you have internally accepted. What you've done and internally accepted the harm that you've done to them and the magnitude of it that is going to help you immensely and helping walk your partner through these triggers. So another thing I'd like to say before we move on is.

Be realistic about the situation going forward don't ever get in the mindset of, we've talked about this enough. We don't need to talk about it anymore. You've punished me enough for this. You have asked me that question a thousand times you've already answered it, right? So you've got to understand this is going to be a long process and you've gotta be in it for the long haul, but I will tell you.

Things are going to start changing and you're not going to be able to recognize it right away. It's going to take time and the healing process is happening and it doesn't really seem like you're getting anywhere. And a lot of people give up right before it. It flips. It's like, Oh my God, we've been doing this for months.

We've been doing this for six months. We've been doing this for a year or two years and everybody's different. So I can't tell you how long was this going to take, but I can tell you that people get tired of doing it and they give up and they throw in the towel right before it flips. But I will tell you it's changing even though you can't see it, just like that medicine that you take for that condition that you have, you don't see it working, but it's working.

There's going to come a day where you look back and you're going to say, Oh my God, things have changed so much things are getting so much better. And then it's going to seem like it's stagnant for a little while. And then you're going to look back and you're like, wow, we're doing amazing. I feel more connected to my spouse than ever before.

So keep on it, keep going. Because if you continue that path of healing there, isn't a way you could fail. You can't, it's impossible. If you look at the trajectory, the only way is up through this process, right? And it's not, like she said, it's not gonna, it's not gonna be instant results. You're not going to see a huge change immediately.

And it's not going to be one of those things where all of a sudden, from one day to the next it's just completely flipped around. It's going to be a lot of putting your head down and putting in some hard work and getting through the tough times. And. Three steps forward and two steps back and sometimes one step forward and three steps back.

But as long as that trajectory is always up and then one day like, Jess said, you're going to look back and you're going to go, wow, you came a long way. There's going to be real good days. And there's going to be really, really bad days and there's going to be all the in-between and then it could even go as far as to you guys have had a really amazing few months, and then one day she gets triggered over something or he gets triggered over something and you've had a really bad day and you're like, Oh my God, here we go.

And get no that's going to happen. We're several, almost five years out. From the day we started our healing process and I still at times get triggered. Now, mind you it'll last anywhere from a few seconds to an hour, and they're nowhere near as intense as they used to be. As a matter of fact, it's like a little drop in the bucket and usually I can get through them myself without even having to talk to him about it.

So don't think that it's just all going to go away. This is a trauma and you have to accept that this is something that your spouse and you are going to have to live with for the rest of your lives, but you can do it. Being thankful in a sense that it happened because it brought you guys closer together and gave you a marriage.

You never thought possible because of it. Yeah. So be in it for the long haul and remain committed no matter what. And don't get lulled into a false sense of security when you've had a good couple of weeks, a good couple months, always keep in the back of your mind that we're not done with this and something may come up and don't get blindsided by it.

Don't remain. Don't get complacent now. Let me bring up another cornerstone of our foundation. You gotta be intentional. And that means keeping it in the forefront of your mind every day and taking those actions every day. And if you're doing that and you're being intentional and you're keeping it current in your mind, you're not going to be as blindsided when those out of the blue moments come up.

So there are some barriers to prevent healing. And we've talked about most of them, I think already, but I just wanted to touch on each one. And, and I'm sure there's more that we're not thinking of right now. And I'm going to write a little more in depth about one of them, at least in my next column, on our website and in our newsletter, but some of the barriers to healing.

So we talked about self work and self help. So not working on your personal demons, thinking that they didn't have a part in what happened. You know, one of the things that Jess and I both. Believe with all our hearts and that we live every day, we try to live it every day is you should constantly be trying to improve yourself.

Even if you think you're perfect or close to perfect. There's always something that could use a little work. So, especially as Jess went in depth about lying, or if there's some kind of, uh, an addiction going on and you think it's unrelated to what happened, it probably all ties in. And even if it didn't tie in, you know, Leaving those things there in the background, they're going to end up showing their ugly heads.

So make sure that you're taking a really good self-inventory and that you are working on those demons because not doing that personal work is going to be a big barrier to healing. We talked about the shame cycle and that's the one that I'm going to get more in depth with on my column this week. But that shame cycle is a self fulfilling self feeding, positive feedback loop.

That will keep you locked in a cycle of bad behavior and shame and guilt, and it will eat away with you eat away at you. It could eat away with you, whatever, but you've got to learn to recognize those things that you're doing that are causing you shame. And that's where that, you know, we talk about openness and honesty and that's not just with your partner.

You got to be that way with yourself too. And so don't be in denial about things. If you're doing something and it's making you not feel so good, and it's making you want to do things to cover it up, or it's something that you don't feel comfortable talking about with your partner, take a look at it.

Don't get locked in that shame cycle. It is destructive. And other thing is, as we talked about taking responsibility, being in denial about the magnitude of the hurt that you've caused. Listen, I, I fell into this. I fell into this, uh, Pothole during our healing process. And it took me a long time because some of the stuff that just told me she was feeling was horrific.

And I don't ever want to have to think of myself as someone who's caused that to another human being, let alone the woman that I love most in the world. But if you're diminishing what they're saying, It may S I guess it may seem like they're saying it to punish you or to make you feel worse or to saturate exaggerate, or to manipulate you into changing.

Believe me, they're not take what they say at face value, even if they are exaggerating, is it really going to hurt you that much to take what they say at face value? So don't diminish try to accept it, even if you don't want to. And it's going to be hard because you're not going to want to. Also be aware of not fully committing you, can't do some of these things and not others.

And you can't do all of these things part way. You can't even do all of these things, but only do some of them part way. You got to throw yourself all in, make sure you commit fully and commit from here, going forward to be open and honest about everything, not just during disclosure. But from that point going forward, it gives you a fresh slate.

It gives you a clean start. All you have to do is keep doing that, you know, and don't lie because if you do, it's good open the door to more lies. So those are some of the barriers to healing, and now we've covered all that. And it's been a lot. Thank you for sitting with us through it. Let's talk about how to start and where to put your foot in first.

So you first need to have a conversation. We have covered a lot in, you really need to break down. What is most important to you in terms of accountability and transparency and how that's going to work, you need to make sure that you guys do have that trigger plan ready for both your spouse that has been hurt.

And you, so you're ready for it. Seeking help for the disclosure is highly recommended, especially if there's a lot, because again, there could be some trauma that could happen during that disclosure. And you want a professional walking you through that. Make sure you have a good understanding of what accountability is, what transparency means and make sure you have that conversation with your spouse about what it means to them and what they need and make sure you're the one initiating it, make sure you're initiating with those things.

You need to treat any issues you have and seeking that help and make sure that it's make sure that it's being used shown to your spouse, that you've started these things and that you're doing them. Right. And then also talking about consistency, what consistency looks like for them? Last week, I talked to the one who has been heard about making their schedule and being as consistent as possible, having a conversation with them about what that looks like for them and what it looks like for you from them.

So what is it that they need from you in the consistency arena? Right. And, you know, look at the people, places and things you're keeping around you, you know, see if you can identify some of the things that either your spouse might find, uh, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, or things that maybe aren't the best things to have in your life.

If you're trying to change the way you're living consistency and predictability. Is super important. And as always, and we don't say this enough on this show, but we really believe it remain humble and be soft and gentle. Remember that this is your loved one and they're hurting. And to make things worse, you're the one that's caused that hurt and not to beat anybody into the ground over it, but always remember that that healing is your responsibility.

So. We are so glad that we were able to provide the Sirius to you, whether you're listening to it on release, or you hear it from a couple of years from now, I really, really hope that this helps you because we both know how incredibly hard this journey is. And the amount of resources out there seems so significant.

And yet you put them into practice and they seem like they're doing nothing. So we hope that we have been able to bring you a plan. And some understanding that really, really works and helps. Yeah. Everything that we've talked about, we've talked about from our personal experience, what works, what doesn't work.

And we're not saying that we know it all, or our way is the best way to do it. We had to pick and choose and try and fail and figure out what worked for us. And you're going to have to do a little bit of the same, but if you, if you get on the same page as us and you follow some of these key things, I think you're going to find that.

That they do work. And we just, I know it's been a rough three weeks. I know it's been hard and you're probably reeling from it, but we appreciate so much everybody who's listened and we hope you stuck through it with us because it can have an incredible effect on your relationship. Okay. Don't forget that the workshop is still open for registration for a little bit longer.

This is the foundation's four cornerstones of a confident marriage. This is a workshop where we'll be covering a topic in the first podcast of the month. And then if you're signed up for the workshop, you will be getting email content every week on that cornerstone. So awesome. It's free. We hope you guys join it.

And. We're looking forward to that. Yeah. We've been really busy the last couple of weeks, and now we're finalizing the last parts of the material for the workshop. It's been incredible putting all that together. We're really, really happy to see how many people signed up for it. And we still got a few spots available, but we're really excited and we're getting ready to start off the new year and our next season.

And we have some great shows lined up. We, we have some guests lined up tease a little bit, then amazing gas. You guys are going to 11. Yeah. So we've been busy getting our, our new material ready for the next year. And if you're not following us on Instagram, that's where, that's where we're the most active.

So I highly encourage you to do that. Some of our interviews are going to be on Instagram live and we got some really cool stuff going on on there. So if you're not on our Instagram do follow us because there is a lot going on on the Instagram. Yeah. Follow us on Instagram because you never know when we might pop off with a live video or let you in on a live session of us recording, or we have a really good interview or we.

We a couple of days after we released an episode where like, Oh my God, we want to talk about this. So we'll hop on a live video and elaborate a little bit more on a podcast we did or something else. So do follow us on Instagram, confident marriage and Facebook and Twitter and our website. So we are going to wrap this up.

You guys, it is December 20th, 2020. And it has been an incredibly hard year and I know whatever holiday it is that you celebrate in this month, it's going to be incredibly difficult, but we want you to stay safe and we have you all in our thoughts and wish you all a very, very, very happy and joyful holiday.

Yeah, we really do. And we really, really appreciate how much you guys have listened and interacted with us and, and been here with us for this journey. Yeah. So goodbye for now, but not forever. Thank you everybody. Have a good day. I love you guys.